Tag: #parenthood

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It’s not just the boxes

“The music is all around us, all you have to do is listen.”

My wife being brave….

If I don’t write this blog post I think I might spontaneously combust. I just have to start somewhere. Being out of the habit all the old doubts have had time to creep in. The self-consciousness clinging to me as close as the tiny beads of sweat that have been my constant companion since moving here. We have no central air in the new house. Now I know why they call it “central” air. :p

We live in a new home, in a new beautiful town. My wife’s father is dead. We didn’t even know he was going to be dead. It was thrust upon us, as death often is. It was unannounced and a swift blow upside our happiness.

The very real threat of a victim story unfolding and a woe is us why so much grief in one year trying to barrel roll me to the bottom of the bayou and choke out any remaining life. Yes it’s been this intense.

From movers that didn’t arrive til 7 pm (scheduled at 3), and moving until 4 am the next day right before our closing, while her father was in the ICU. We found out there wasn’t any hope the same day we signed our papers for our new home.

Everything was out of place. Our hearts and souls were like the many packed boxes. Jumbled and scattered. Unfound. Riddled with broken items we have held dear, the natural losses any move yields. Now we are standing bewildered at where to begin unpacking all of this. It’s not just the boxes.

Unimaginable timing. My wife and her two siblings standing wide eyed with horror bracing themselves for an unknown journey of probate and estate settling, while packing their grief away for the time being.

And my wife said to me the other day, “and life just keeps going”, as in that’s it. It’s just over. He was here for so much of their years on this earth, meant so many things, and he is no longer. What do you do in the wake?

I feel like we are in the upside down. I didn’t actually even watch Stranger Things much, but the reference somehow feels right to me. Everything dark and unknown, and not being able to get back to what once was. A delineated before and an after.

Grief is the great divider. We are together, but right now we are also separate. I cannot be where she is in her feelings. The closest I can come is what she is able to put into words. I guess that is why writing is so sacred. But I still cannot know what it is like to be her right now. And when she is consumed I have to wait. A triggering position for me. She is oh so patient with my many scars.

I think as humans we are tricked into expecting a happily ever after once we have done so much work, as I have, to find your person. And we have immense happiness together. Is that why we are being offered up so many challenges? Four failed pregnancies, one ending in surgery and utter sadness, and the loss of a parent, and a move in the period of about one year.

No baby, a funeral, and a whopping amount of change all at once. I feel as if the tectonic plates of my life are shifting, constant earthquakes, and the aftershocks are still coming. When will my earth feel secure again? And if anything all this has done is made me know that anything can and will happen anytime. You are not guaranteed any kind of happy. So if you have it even for a minute absorb that shit! Pay attention to it. Be grounded. Be grateful.

The tears just started to pour. I can’t explain what it feels like for me to write, or maybe I can and will right here and now. Your first sip of water after being stranded without for days. That first touch of warmth after being cold with no relief. It’s an inhale and an exhale. It’s holding on and letting go. It’s a communion with my higher self. It’s joy and ecstasy. It is raw. It’s August’s symphony. If you haven’t seen August Rush, see it now.

It is the most profound relief to put my heart on the page. It is everything.

Amidst everything going on around me there is a lot going on inside of me. I am approaching my 39th year. The last year of my 30’s. My body is changing, my mind is changing. How can someone simultaneously become more confident than they have ever been as they are also acutely aware of the descent of their metabolism and a great many other bodily related factors. Just how?

I will not even touch on my son leaving for college in two weeks. It’s too heavy to even add. The stack of cards will crumble. That is another post. How can one heart possibly hold all this feeling ?

August Rush. A fairytale. I downloaded the song of course so I can listen to a beautiful composition with so much heart as I am doing just that. This movie. A lost perfect boy with amazing talent, who plays music to find a set of parents who both want him as much as he wants them. A fairytale indeed. Good for you August…. no genuinely good for you.

Watching a set of siblings grieve their father, my wife grieve him. I couldn’t help but have a huge missing portion of my life highlighted. The best case scenario is that I say at least I was able in a strange way to have that experience. I’ve been grieving the absence of my parents my whole life. And it’s made me who I am in so many ways, the good and the bad.

I watch from the outside an alien. I watch the humans with my nose pressed to the tank. Human in moments, robot in others. Carefully choosing which emotion suits me the best because naturally feeling them was abandoned long ago. It sounds so sad when I say it. Don’t saaaaaay it. But it’s so beautiful too.

What a paradox that the more a person suffers the more kind and open hearted and brave they become. Why do these qualities require such suffering?

So here my wife and I are, on this journey. Somehow together, which is my greatest privilege. And living with our whole hearts. Which people can actually see and they respond to it. Two people building their confidence in a world that would keep them small if it could.

My wife has been taking singing lessons and watching her battle through her self-consciousness to that glorious moment that makes it all worthwhile. That smile when she hits the “C”, that high after her lesson when she is in profound joy. And I am doing the same thing with my clothing and with my counseling. We are being brave, blazing trails, and enjoying one another in this life.

Even amidst all the sorrow I just described. What I am finding is that life is both beautiful and devastating, all the time. Your best hope is to fashion a self that can manage the hurdles. To be humbled by the losses, and to carry the people we love, even if only in memory all the days of our lives.

I am stitched together by moments….and to my beautiful wife and to my children… you are my greatest. I’ll climb through hell and back a thousand times just for one more with you. I’ll fight all my demons to show up for you, and live my life with great heart.

I hope you know….

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A Sunday Untangling….

The yarn is multi-colored and vivid….this above is a live capture of my brain. When I can get one thread undone and use it properly, the feeling is pure bliss.

Blog from the bath on a Sunday afternoon. I decided to attempt to restart my day as I have been cranky. A combination of my period, waking up with a migraine, and existential questioning is contributing to this.

Days never seem to go as planned have you noticed this? I once told a client the song lyric, “you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather” (an OutKast lyric) though I am sure the phrase has been around long before they have, and they tattooed it on themselves. Not a bad choice considering how relevant a phrase. This happens in my life all the time.

My health is what most often derails my plans, and rather than accept and nurture myself for this, I am usually hard on myself. Today is no exception. If I could just push through and create one account (for Vivint). The biggest problem with this job, while there is many good aspects, is the constant self imposed pressure. There are group chats, and a leaderboard, and it activates every competitive drive in me, which is obviously the point.

The challenge? I suppose is to trust myself more, give myself more permission and space, to not determine my worth by that scoreboard, and to find balance within, versus seeking external acceptance.

This is all well and good except…. that I can’t keep thoughts like, “if I just worked a little harder that’s 5,000 more to help my kids with college with”, and “I need to be less selfish and self indulgent.” But I just can’t drive as hard as I used to in any aspect. I can’t because I won’t allow myself to not rest, to not validate my disease.

I think I’d appear more successful to others if I could just keep up this grind and pace I have my whole life.

There it is, there is the epiphany I was writing towards….. the truth is I’ve had “grit” my whole life: it’s what has made me so successful, and also so deeply bone soul searingly tired. I am both of these things.

The truth is my spiritual self is already at retirement age. There is our chronological age, and then there is our life experience age. No one sees or recognizes the latter. In God years, Dog years, and warrior years I am 137. I just guessed at that number. I think it’s really like Methuselah (can’t believe I still remember this Bible crap), who was rumored to have died at 969 years of age. Yeah like him. Also small disclaimer I’m not actually anti anything to do with anyone’s faith or belief system. I have some deep wounds that were inflicted by the devout Christians in my life, and that’s my cross to bear. No pun intended :p Wah wah

With sales and money it only gets more seductive, all of it. The competitions, the numbers. The more money you have, the more you need to keep up. I will have to beat this system, but I catch myself already doing what all the humans do which is strive for the nicer things to validate their existence of course, as soon as they begin to get a taste of success.

I was perusing a commonality among these Vivint DMs this am, that’s district manager. Most are men, and most are tall, handsome, tattooed, and have a bombshell on their arms, and or a gorgeous family. I caught myself being envious of their trips to Fiji and fancy cars, and how their life looks.

And then I’m wise enough to know that pictures may tell a thousand words, but so often they can also tell a thousand lies. You just don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Money may not buy happiness, but it for sure can buy a certain amount of peace of mind, which is what I crave most lately, if you know you can pay your bills, you’re much more sound emotionally than when you can’t. I know that from my vast life experiences. But it is hard to notice when in the midst if you’ve crossed over to the dark side of this equation: seduction, greed, production at the cost of your health, etc.

I’m so grateful I can usually head off most destructive processes at the pass now, by doing just this. Reflecting, thinking, using an open mind and heart. Not getting too conclusive, and also not getting too careless with my emotions or behaviors. At least their is some silver lining to just a torturously analytical mind 😉

Guys I’m almost there. I’m on the brink, of teaching, talking, training hopefully. I don’t know whether this will be the product of an article I submit to Psychology Today or Counseling Today, or whether it will be down the road during or after getting a PhD, if that’s what I do.

I’m craving a change I know that. I’m always craving a change, because there’s more opportunities for learning and growth. I just don’t know yet what that change looks like. If it will be brought on by us having a baby (embarking on that journey again), or by moving to a different home, or a different state which I’m really craving. I’ve been thinking of Oregon lots lately. It’s calling me. But that would require so many logistics. So it is likely long down the ride, though I’m not sure if it has to be….?!

With only one life (perhaps I should get more into the idea of multiple ones so I can cultivate a sense of peace that everything will happen that needs to). One lifetime hardly seems enough to fulfill all one’s dreams, not this one’s anyway 😉 they are too big.

And then I’m right at gratitude again. Thank goodness for this enthusiasm for living. Even when I’m afraid my gigantic feelings could swallow me, or grief will end me, I’m so much more resilient than my feelings would lend me to believe. We all are I think.

Sometimes our resilience works against us for along while after it has protected us from great trauma. The same mechanisms that are meant to protect, also harm in ways the subconscious won’t even let us be aware of without that magical observant impartial party: the therapist.

I want to write so much more about trauma, what I have learned about my own and others. I want to trust that I have something to contribute that hasn’t been said or done in the way I will say and do it.

This is where life finds me today. In my 38th year, often wondering how long I have left, because this is how my mind is wired. Because I am desperate to share my gifts with the world. It finds me in love with myself, my children, my partner, my work. It finds me being someone others seek for solace and wisdom, a position I’m so honored with. It finds me the parent of children who are wise beyond their years, and driven, and brave, and intelligent, and determined.

My son is in love for his first time. And it’s interesting to see how much like me he is in his thinking, and depth of feeling. I’m both elated and terrified by this realization. He faces many difficult decisions, young love is not for the faint of heart, and does not favor the weak of constitution.

My daughters continue to learn and grow and navigate this world as a second sex, their birthright affording them no mercy with regard to how fiercely they will need to love themselves to suit up in this society. They will need all the strength I have bestowed them with, and all the resilience life with me has required them to develop.

My wife is grieving more gracefully than any human I’ve ever encountered. So many changes she has had since we have fallen in love. What a bad ass!

And me… I am here just learning to play and to be gentle with myself and others. How does one ask a freight train or a tornado to be gentle, after they have had such a need to develop into those things?

I’ll be here trying to figure this out…

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Travel

cravetravelblog

Why do we travel? What makes it so interesting? I am sitting in Crave restaurant, it is a local hangout in Ansonia Connecticut, the most upscale and only choice in my mind. Not because of the upscale part, but because the food is consistently good no matter what, and it just feels good. Not sure what about it accomplishes this, but it does. 

Anyway I am sitting in a new and different perspective. I am by myself facing the street. I can see the antique shop across the street, some very interesting looking industrial buildings (see picture), and a sign that says Bennet & Walsh Attorney’s at law. There is a 103 on the door, the numbers are horizontal, large black font laid on gold or silver background. The doorway is rounded and the building is of stone. So cool. 

Have I ever seen this before? The answer is yes and no. I have seen it many times I am sure, but if I never attended to it then it won’t be encoded and won’t really mean anything. 

When we travel because we have added this expectation, parameters are set for experiencing the new then our brains are more likely to acquiesce. People are going outside to smoke. Interesting enough this no longer creates a craving in me. That is a realization in and of itself. I remember years where I had a single track mind of obtaining a cigarette and being afforded the reprieve of avoiding whatever social interaction was making me anxious, but escaping into the cool air and polluting my lungs. It wasn’t even the cigarette it was belonging to a group that made me less intimidated, and the escape of it all, and it gave me something to focus intently on, that was not tearing at myself. Hmmm. 

I am just thinking of how we don’t need to travel ever to see new things. We can see new things, or through new eyes anywhere and at anytime. Be exploring with our curiosity versus drowning in conclusion and despair. This is a choice we have at our fingertips at anytime, but it never feels that way. This is a lie. I think anyway. 

Magic is the fact that I used to not know where my next bill was going to get paid from, to being able to indulge myself in simple pleasures that I give myself permission for. To enjoy the moment, a moment. 3 years ago I would have felt guilty for anything I spent on myself, that it should have been going for this or that, or to savings. And now I have created the ability to both take care of my responsibilities and also to be able o experience joy in a cup of a coffee and a flan in a restaurant. Small sips, Savor. 

I have created so many of my dreams already, and yet my human brain rarely registers this. It tells me “Christina we are dissatisfied with your performance, we know you could be doing more.” Maybe I could, but do I want to be? Isn’t that as important a question as any?

Soon (in March) my wife and I will be traveling to the International Women’s Summit in Arizona. I have never been to Arizona, and within the US there aren’t too many places I can say I haven’t been, so this will be cool. It’s going to be warmer, we will need to adjust for this. I am tempted to pack nothing, and to make part of our adventure buying some new things while we are there, but then we will need to bring back luggage, hmmm. 

What does one see in Arizona anyway? What are the famous things to do or visit? I guess we will have to do some research. 

I think I have spent most of my life thinking something has to be grand to experience it to the fullest. It must be a grand gesture or trip of a lifetime, but the possibility for magic moments are held within the everyday also. We can go to an area we never have been before even where we already live, and look around, be alert. 

Anyway back to my notes about writing my memoirs. My beautiful wife got me this pencil set for Christmas, and it IS marvelous. She has infused them with her belief in my capability to do the things I set out to do, and if that isn’t magic I don’t know what is. 

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Hamilton: What will our play be called ?!

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

The image suggests perhaps a playful post about our experience in the city. Wouldn’t that be a more pleasant read ? Perhaps it would, but it wouldn’t be written by me then, at least not tonight. 😉

This blog post is a letter I wrote to my wife tonight. Whether or not all things are meant to be shared I think there is always a power in it for someone. This letter bled straight from my fingertips, it fell onto the page in waves of truth that couldn’t make their way out fast enough. A catharsis. Isn’t it always. If someone else has a different experience with those words who am I to stop them.

Clicking publish has always been an act of bravery…. one I never gave myself much credit for. Warning it begins with graphic Crohn’s Disease material exactly as I experienced it.

I had a stomach episode tonight unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I thought I was going to have you have to call 911. I almost screamed for you. Literally. I had visions of me passing out and dying on the toilet. I woke up doubled over completely, and I mean completely. I hobbled to the toilet. I didn’t know if I would vomit or faint. I felt like all 3. I felt like I was going to have to poop but didn’t know what thing would come first. It felt like I was being ripped in half. My shirt was completely soaked, completely, and contrary to the scary fast heart rate I will have usually during an attack my heart felt like it couldn’t even beat, it was low 50’s. 

I just held on and tried to breathe deep as I could through the waves of pain and head swimming until finally I pooped literally probably 3 toilet bowls full. It wasn’t all at once. First was getting the hard part out, and then a ton came. 

By the time I was done I was left shaking and freezing and now I’m more wiped out than you can ever imagine. I just can’t even quite describe the pain.

A couple of things happened. One, I felt a tremendous wave of compassion for V and guilt at not feeling more present. It’s like I can’t weather watching her suffer and I must because I’m mom. What a confusing thing. And two, intense fear that having not taken my injection even for a week has thrown things into some terrible state with my health. What if?! And what if V is in for a lifetime of chronic suffering with her tummy that impedes so much of her adventurous self. My god that will break my heart. And then that I really do love my kids moment. Well of course I fucking do?! How could I ever be so unkind to myself, ?’ To not give myself this benefit of the doubt. 

And then I think of the good thing that I’ll make sure she is safe and supported forever. Never scared she won’t be able to support herself. And then the realization that I’m a steadfast supporter and provider and that I’m creating / have created that from scratch. 

And this is literally what a profound RE frame in thinking looks like. I’m strong and proud and safe and I’ll keep my family safe, not some impulsive person hanging by a thread.

I’m creating something beautiful in myself and for others and it’s my story. My legacy. What I want people to say about me, when they tell my story like Eliza did for Hamilton. What will they say?! We all wonder what people will say.

This makes me think of you: do you know all anybody says is nice things about you?! I always wanted to be that person, but I make too many waves, take too many risks, and don’t think enough about how I’ll make someone feel. You think too much, and I not enough. If you take us both you have the perfect person 😉 boastful? Perhaps. 

I make people uncomfortable, but do it with good intentions lol. Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions;) I make people uncomfortable by pointing out what is so readily visible to me, that for others it takes them a lifetime if at all to notice. A gift and a curse. 

I wonder if V felt a fraction of how I felt just now. If she did I feel terrible for her. I’m gonna root around in your magic bag of goodies, the bag leftover from our dead dreams (to be dramatic and truthful) and see if I can find some life giving electrolytes in the form of Gatorade to settle this tummy. It’s feeling like knives are raking it currently and I can’t be out of commission this long. 

If anything happens to me babe please tell my story. I need my story told. The need is getting fiercer now. I need people to know how hard I fought just to be ok on a daily basis and my kids to know how strong their love makes me. They are the fuel to my fire, and everything that makes me the person that I am.

Every person I’ve ever helped has them to thank. 

And I have you to thank. You’re such a source of comfort to me. Speaking of…. I’ll need to restock our sick supplies. We were so fortunate to have all these. Though the reason we do and they are unused is still excruciating. 

Babe I know your process is different but please know that if this didn’t happen I might not in some really profound way have truly known how much I want it. How I want to enjoy the tiny new life that we create rather than ever viewing him or her as a burden. And my life has already been so heavy so long, any small thing sometimes does feel this way. But in part due to experiencing this loss with you, I know even more profoundly how much each second even is worth. 

I do in a fucked up way feel it is meant to be this way. This sense that everything does happen for a reason, and not that that’s just something we say to make sense of things when they are too fucked up. It makes me believe in destiny and magic. 

Does that mean we couldn’t have done without this toll to our hearts, this wound, and these scars… of course not. 

But life would not hold as much meaning without the whole picture, the whole journey, and my life now is beyond filled with meaning. 

While I don’t plan on going anywhere soon, I am satisfied with my life right now. I need you to know that. I don’t regret for me or be sad for the rest of my unloved life ever, because I have lived it to my fullest already. I do want more of course, immense amounts more. But if it wasn’t in my cards I didn’t miss a thing. I knew exactly what I was doing. 

I want you to find the same feeling, but in whatever way Or path that’s meant for you. That’s my dream for you, never give in to self defeating thoughts, ones that lack compassion for your full journey. 

If you did ever lose me I want you to live on for me in the way I would have. Carry my legacy and be for my kids what I would have been for them. You are up to that task. No one is as well as you or I wouldn’t have picked you. They will need you forever. 

I don’t plan on going anywhere, but we never plan for that so I want these words down. I don’t care what laws or rules or fears or whatever. We have something very special here and blood relation has nothing to do with it. We must trust that. You are an irreplaceable part of the kids healing now. You’re already written into the story. And I would never want to let you be snuffed out in the event of my demise. And anyone who would try would do so out of ego or pride etc, finally able to have their kids back from my evil clutches you know 😉 but you know better. 

You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Yes little ol you, it’s true. That’s a truth. And it couldn’t be without you being so much more than you see when you look in the mirror. That distorted perception is your only enemy, it kills more dreams than a semi-automatic with unlimited rounds. 

I hope my kids will delight in my letters someday when they are old enough to read how my mind worked. Find, keep, and appreciate them all, because they are who I always really was inside and kids know so little about that.

I’ll never know much about who my parents really were inside, so much is a mystery, especially my dads side, and my mother’s, a tragedy. So for them to have this insight. To know my mind intimately. Incredible.

Wow so all this feels like a product of a near death experience. Listen honestly. It may sound dramatic, but this episode was no joke. And all this sweating and gross (being on prednisone and scared) the past couple of weeks has been really humbling.

There is a level of acceptance I am at, that wasn’t there before. 

My disease has carried a large piece of denial for the longest. I wasn’t willing. I’ve been in as much denial of it as I have how damaging my childhood was to me. I am reaching a stage of acceptance now, and it’s making me so much stronger. So much more at peace and strong. Someone that you will feel proud and safe to have a baby with. Someone stable that will enjoy that adventure with, not resent it, or fear it, or feel guilty about it because I already have kids.

That is at least the take home I’m recognizing from this tragedy. 

I will get to move forward without a doubt in my mind, and for me, that’s like having rebuilt an entire nation after its downfall. I’ve been a shaky entity bordering on panic for as long as I can remember, to be emerging this strong, still, solid force of love and compassion is unbelievable even to myself. 

I am surprising myself a lot lately. The strong I always identified as prior was a sort of forced kind of strong, a necessary one. This strong now is the accumulation of weathering storms with a sense of grace rather than a frenzy or a panic. 

It’s a strong I am satisfied and proud of, not one thrust upon me without my consent. It’s a soft kind of strong, and I can’t wait to hold our baby in these new arms made of this.

Every time you grace me with your vision of seeing the loving child inside of me. I can see when you see her, I can see her too, and it brings powerful healing. You bring that to me. 

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

What if someone else could find this place (when they couldn’t before) because of our story? Or was able to believe in their dreams?! 

Bliss. 

My tummy has burning remnants of the suffering I just went through and I can’t even be bothered to focus on that. I’ve too much shit to do with my one life. Thank goodness because otherwise I’d crumble into a little ball of stress and worry and take days to recover. 

I don’t have days anymore to spend in that way, there’s too much work to be done.

Every word on every page for every day of my life…. are for you….

Now I am going to curl up as close to you as I can and let your breath lull me into a deep relaxation, and help the pain melt away. 

All the love in my heart 

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A birthday tribute to my wife …

It’s my fourth favorite person in the worlds extra special born day tomorrow. Who’s keeping count right?! But I’ve learned over the years I need to be my number one, closely followed by my children, and have now been blessed enough that now we are 5. Still soon to be 6…. that dream floats evermore back into the picture daily. Thank god for our natural innate resilience.

Just 5 humans trying to navigate a painful and divisive world with the biggest of hearts and fullest of enthusiasms.

So I just want to take some time to honor this new addition to our family. She’s new old. We have a new love everyday, that feels like it could/should have been there my whole life. The depth goes that far.

My dearest Courtney you walked softly into our lives, as if on a bed of Snow White powder, silently, and yet the foundation we are laying together is molten lava stream of concrete that has hardened into the kind of solid ground healthy families thrive on. We created this out of a place of deep love for love itself, and for the creation of the family we always dreamed of.

I’m so proud of us. You’re a mighty, quiet, thoughtful, kind, soul, who lights up a room with her smile. People just love to be around you, and I consider it a constant gift that I get to be the benefactor of a large amount of these moments.

Whether you are generously rubbing my back at the end of the day because you know how heavy my walk in the world has been, or cooking a meal that risks you great criticism for my ever changing teenage children’s tastes….. you do it with loving kindness.

You see yourself so often as less than what you are, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to show you your powers. Great healing powers, they are immense.

No matter what else you do with your life from here on out, please know you have saved us. This is not dramatic, rather it is true. You’re gentle with our hearts, when much of life for the kids and I has felt intense.

Your gentle love is an intense space of healing, and I’ll love you like the grateful stray dog I have always felt like, that’s found her forever home.

And finally now this is all ok. It was never supposed to be different. I was never supposed to be more than what I was when I was, and neither are you. We just are.

And this life with you in it is bliss to me.

So I hope your 35th year lends to you feeling as special as you make us feel everyday.

It is fitting we get to experience Hamilton in Broadway together to celebrate. I remember watching you see Wicked and it was one of the most ground moving moments of my life. I knew you felt with your whole self, and I knew that’s what I wanted and deserved.

Thank you in a million little ways….

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Bronchitis and Snowy Reflections

There’s a certain permission that comes with being sick that it seems you (I) can find no other way. The permission to sit even slightly more still, even for a second. Which has allowed me to reflect a lot.

I’m recovering from bronchitis and had no idea it could lay me up so much. But here I am.

The snow is finally cascading down today, it is almost a relief existentially; climate change as it is and all. The flakes are ice coated and making a tiny crunch sound as they topple and flit here and there.

I’m just sitting here marveling at how much has changed around me, and it really does seem like all I did was blink.

I’m sitting in the kitchen part of our finished in-law portion of the home. This has been a dear friend and roommates kitchen, when her and her son lived down here, and her second son was born in this home, about 4 years ago. It’s how I paid my mortgage, and also how we both stayed sane. I was less anxious living alone, and we have become a sort of family to one another. Seeing the other through bests and worsts.

It’s brisk down here, but I’m wrapped in a warm red blanket, and sitting in and oversized brown lazy boy recliner. It’s interesting to get this kind of perspective on the home. Not a space I would normally sit. I could pick apart its imperfections: the low ceiling, white tiled floor, the basement like feel of it all. But what I’ve been doing most today is marveling at how far I’ve come and how blessed we all are.

I don’t think I ever even set my sights high enough to home ownership. I think I had planned on a retail job (management if I was lucky), and a small clean apartment, the kind I sometimes saw my friends in when I lived in Oregon.

I’ve been moving through life so frantically, so panicked that simplicities are now what I long for. What comes when you enjoy what you have like it’s the best thing on earth. My ability to hear for example or to taste, to appreciate the finer details in any mundane thing.

My wife and I recently were deciding if perhaps we might move to Milford or Fairfield Ct, out of the valley, up into a different class (and tax bracket). Funny how the important things to me about this move are still in the small details.

I would like taller ceilings, the feeling of room and space, a wood burning fireplace for smell and ambience, and a very nice bathtub. I’d like to see some woods or nature out my window. Bookshelves, many many bookshelves. Mahogany and teakwood smells and feels. An office so my papers and documents are not constantly strewn about. And we have the means to get into this nicer home now, but only to be stressed or house poor again seems not the right way this time. So we may just refinance and fall in love with all we already have! For a couple more years at least anyway.

Perhaps poor the love into this home and choose to see it in a way that serves us, rather than trumping up dissatisfaction as a means to motivate us into an action that may not even end up with us any happier in the end.

Tomorrow we are all as a family going to see Hamilton on Broadway and stay overnight in the city. Another extravagance I never would have dreamed of before. Some of us are not feeling so hot, hopefully that can be mild so there’s nothing taken from our experience.

I have found myself ahead rather than behind, perhaps not as much as my dreams could imagine, but then my dreams always were very expansive anyway.

It’s interesting the creaks and sounds down here. Now a part of other’s memories who have occupied this space. It’s housed a woman post recovery and pre-discovery. Another who was fleeing a bad roommate situation and stayed over here. Our home is a space of comfort, warmth, shared meals and affection. How could I not have seen this before?!

It’s everything I ever set out to create, and so am I. Not a single thing lacking. What a delicious discovery to stumble upon as I am sitting here listening to a different angle of the home I’ve occupied for 7 years.

This chair is very comfy, yes it would look nice next to a roaring fire, but I can imagine one just as easily……

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A Self on Ice

In my morning pages today I found myself pondering whether I like my new tattoo or not. I’ve posted it here, 2 birds in flight, it matches with my wife. It represents our identical twin pregnancy flying away, a dream removed without warning or time to prepare. A major disappointment. An earth shattering grief. The pain can be recalled at any second, but as we humans are wired for resilience we are back up and running and re-shaping our plans.

We got the tattoo on a moments notice in downtown Ansonia. I had just cut off all my hair, and my head was freezing, and my identity shaky. Who was I now? I went from the girl next door with her long hair that often hinged on the, “but you don’t look gay”, and “you’re so pretty” compliments for shelter, to someone I didn’t recognize in the mirror. Shocking.

I was suddenly transported back to childhood when I would stare long hours in the mirror wondering if the soul that was housed within, was the same as the body without.

Could anybody see me really.?

I’m still looking in the mirror and wondering. Waiting for evidence this way or that. If suddenly a client leaves then it must be my radical new appearance, analyzing everything. A disease really. Could the tattoo on my wrist so unlike my conservative self that was deeply forged in childhood, the one taught to constantly be observant for shame, signal something about me I don’t want?

Will someone think I’ve been to jail? I look at it and sometimes identify myself with some of the judgments people make about tattoos and that helps me connect to compassion for all misunderstandings we have about ourselves and others in this world.

My mind expands and so does my heart.

As I was writing my morning pages I wanted to share an excerpt because this is trauma and what it does. It may not go across as meaningful as I experienced it. But what I can tell you is that the words cascaded onto the page almost as if someone else wrote them and they evoked emotion.

That has to be the real magic they talk about of writing. It happens through us. It isn’t thinking, its feeling set to open space and room for what arises without judgment. That last part is the toughie. Without judgment, how does one do that amongst so much?

Loving myself better, for the right reasons, and thoroughly inside and out has been a life long pursuit for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to navigate myself into a position to teach others what I have learned about this journey through my counseling practice, and really through the way I live my life personally. And there’s still much work to be done. A lot of thinking this morning on how I want to be in my loving, when to be soft, when to be strong, when to bend so nothing breaks and knowing the boundaries on what is my part of the work, and when it’s outside of my control and something laid down long before I stepped on the scene.

Loving myself with my analytical nature, loving myself for my quirks, loving myself when I’m making mistakes, and being gentle, as I navigate this I’ll be better at doing the same for others.

This journey is not for the faint of heart.

So I was writing about my battle between nice girl next door who is nervous about what everyone thinks of her, and rebel without a cause who gives 0 fucks. I try to make my way toward the second, but my body even defies this option. I will always care more than I want to about everything it seems….

“A self on ice”

(A depersonalization separation disassociation until reunification)

A rebel whose stomach quivers

At the slightest disturbance,

I am a fraud my harpy critic shrieks.

All these selves will give way to

A little girl huddled down for safety

Holding her nighty night blanket

Sucking her thumb.

Where is she?

Give her back to me, I need her.

I left her.

When I am cold and hard,

I’ve left my child

And I’m guilty for it.

I stumble forward numb

Hoping to feel any connection

Scrambling for it.

That smile she had,

It was beautiful,

She lit up a room with her enthusiasm.

She’s died

A thousand times I’ve mourned her.

Each self built she went further

Underground

Until I stopped to dig and find her.

These years of doing that have

Been the hardest and the best.

I knew to love as you all deserve

I had to look at her,

See her suffering,

And not turn away in shame.

I had to hold her,

And I keep having to do so,

And it’s changed my whole world.

Fierce drive no longer cuts it,

Stopping to think how I feel,

And others as well,

Beats cold stubborn drive any day.

Now it does anyway,

But in the world of the trauma

Survivor

It’s one minute to the next,

Frantically meet that need at all costs

Zoom zoom

Leave all feeling behind

Assess situation,

find safety,

seek comfort

Run fast

No where in that is

Stop to feel

Be at peace

Love yourself

Rest

Now I am here

Seeking

Balance

No one told me

That thawing out

Could be this hard

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Let’s talk numbers

So recently I’ve been having all sorts of sales numbers rushing through my brain. I must admit they take up a lot of space and I’ve asked myself a lot if I belong here (Vivint Solar). Then recently I attended their annual conference and things made a lot more sense to me about why I am doing this.

Originally I did it to face my anxieties, exposing myself to knocking on people’s doors seemed a good test to see if I could get used to that, without my heart hammering away in my chest. I also did it with a goal in mind of buying a beloved cottage which seemed a key to writing my memoirs. These were my two main motivators.

Then the unthinkable happened and we experienced the devastating loss of our identical twin pregnancy that we had spent a year working towards. This was a month long road paved with nails, and we are only now in the recovering stages.

I found myself having a dark and stormy attitude, and as a very influential person I knew this was not me, but I couldn’t find the light. It’s actually the spirit of the Whalers (another story), my New England descendants that brought me a little bit closer to myself again.

New Englanders being the first to have such a crazy person to suggest that we could change our stars around by getting into a tiny boat with a sharp stick and bringing down a whale. It is no surprise we have such sharp edges. I say we like I’m from here originally and not from the land of hippie tree huggers in Oregon 😉

Rather than seeing this whole business as sales and not who I am as a person I chose to see myself as having the privilege to be a part of something special. Helping our community to convert to clean energy, being a pioneer, a warrior, a whaler! Going out with my harpoon and stick and believing I can single handedly change my stars and protect my people and my planet. Not being skeptical, but positive and full of the live I always have been.

The power had been down on my panels, and it was time to fix my system.

I possess this grit, this sense of urgency. The ability to press the gas harder over a bumpy road, which actually works better than going slow. I’ve been this way my whole life. And in the midst of these people who are brave and overcoming their own personal limitations I kept thinking oh look I’m home. So there has to be something to this whole solar thing.

And this is where I have landed for now. So for this morning I’m going to share a post one of the top sellers posted, full of life advice I wish I’d had years ago, and what I wrote to my children about when I shared it.

Credit Thiago Barros from Vivint Solar

This is one of the big sellers for Vivint.

It’s interesting because what I like best is being amongst other very driven people. I’m not sure where or if I fit here. I’m afraid of working too much and missing you guys…. I have dreams of owning a bed and breakfast together and or a coffee shop together and working all of us around each other. And not sure without some capital how to make that happen. My dreams always were bigger than my wallet. I’m just sitting here appreciating all of you each for what you bring to my life.

Kids I’ve been pondering over your Letters and you and they make me a better person always. To learn to create space for your feelings. To have the space to give. It’s all new to me. Like being reborn 1,000 times.

I put the cart before the horse so many times in my life that now I want to teach you from my mistakes how to dream big but like this guy says above to not buy the thing til you have earned it.

I want to be home and cook more and hustle more and and and. Always driven. In the Vivint conference we were just at the guy was talking about how successful people have this sense of urgency, almost like they are distracted, they get weird he says. And I identified with that a lot. It never was a matter of not loving you, but a product of having so many dreams in this life.

It’s actually not a very easy existence in certain ways. My mind tortures me and calm is very hard to find. Peace of mind. When I look at you I see it, but sometimes it feels so far away to touch.

You guys are always my why, why I work so hard, and why I push myself past my fears, and why I get out of bed when I’m tired, scared or don’t feel well.

I want to thank you for being patient with Courtney and I as we have been so consumed with trying to bring this family a baby and with the pain when that dream didn’t go as planned. I know it’s been a little dark for awhile. A little (lot) less present. I’ve been coping with Vivint I guess, and learning a new thing. I realize we have heard very little about how you guys feel about the disappointment. Probably trying to shield you from our pain and not let it effect you, but it does anyway I see.

When a dream that has become a framework, and you think it’s on its way to success comes crashing down around you, it takes awhile to see and find the light and energy again. You will experience this at some point in your lives and I will be right there for it. I’m going to do my damnedest to be by your side for everything you want me to. Every important moment. I hope to use my analysis less 😉 and my heart more. For someone with a history of trauma this is very difficult, some might argue impossible. You become wired differently. And I’ll fight even wiring and my genetics for you. You inspire me everyday and please always tell us how you’re feeling. Even if it’s not received perfectly in a moment, we hear you and see you…..

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Love heals all wounds

Slowly very slowly I am becoming myself again. Grief takes you away from everything you are and everything you know. That’s what I have learned recently. As the storm clears however, what I am finding is a new appreciation for all that I have and all that I am.

This year I do feel as if January was the lost month. And that’s a lot of time to lose for someone who doesn’t want to miss a second. But was it really lost? Or did we only stand to gain?

Gain?! How can I possibly suggest watching our dreams crumble could result in a gain? I can hardly believe what I’m typing! But yes you gain something. Perspective and Presence with capital P’s.

Now I am here finally able to wipe the tears that kept smudging the blueprint of our lives and begin to draft again. This 2 months has felt like a single lifetime.

Recently I had my kids write me a letter (to lift their grounding from the dog peeing on the couch). They were to write an essay on their experience with me as a mother. At some point I may share them in their entirety, but to summarize for now. They love me, they really love me. It’s unthinkable they wouldn’t right?!

But often times I don’t feel loved like the humans do, it’s part of what I come with.

Recently someone told me at the end of the day we are who we are. Seemingly simple advice right ? Why is it that it’s the most simple of advice executed at the proper time that is the most profound?!

I’ve spent a lifetime fighting what I thought I could become, because of the things I saw and experienced when I was little. If there was any chance I could be that, I wasn’t going to take it. I was a vicious slave master over myself, and I did not use kindness to meet my goals.

I found as a mother I could keep the same viciousness I treated myself with away from my children, but that meant I had to keep a large portion of me distant as well. I replaced me with more warm and safe characters. Until later in life I began to realize they had their own dark sides as well, and maybe I wasn’t so terrible after all. I grew and I grew.

I have always done it backwards. Their love saved me, when it was “supposed” (such a nasty word) to be my love nurturing them. I loved better and more than my memory allows me. Again that terrible slave master who was constantly whipping me when I would come even close to the behavior of my mother. It was exhausting to be that vigilant over myself and much of their young lives they have seen me tired and stressed.

Until finally I put the whip down and began to give myself nurturing and affection.

Again seemingly selfish in the world of society’s view of the mother. But society never knew my beginning, and kindness was the medicine I required all along. I could never be warm, gentle, and kind with my children when I couldn’t be with my own child. It was always incongruous and disconnected. And I was always aware that I was. Not a fun combination. That shit needs to stay in your subconscious so you can survive. I’m an odd breed. Always aware when I constantly wished not to be. My gift and my curse.

Thoughts like, “it’s too late”, or “you did this the wrong way”, only harm my soft new self. Like a baby from the womb my new self isn’t ready to take care of itself yet. I needed nurturing, and I found that in my love in my 36th year, and the rest as they say is history.

Not co-dependent love, despite my sometimes fear of bordering on that 😉 not all consuming love, not burning love, not scathing or scarring love,

Generous love. Benefit of the doubt love, trusting love, gentle love, infinite love, graceful love, warm and available at all times love. Patient, oh so patient love.

Love heals all wounds. And I hope to love my children and family with this healed self for the rest of my days, and I hope to tell my story so they can know how hard I had to work to be available to them. So that they know I fashioned a self out of scraps. And what it takes to do that in the way that I did.

My gratitude continues to grow by leaps and bounds and perhaps this new self that is growing and being raised with all this love will have the courage to write books and talk you the world about her experiences.

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The couch of mixed emotions….

I’ve been going through the ringer lately. Personally. Professionally. Motherly. Wifely.

Is there some kind of unwritten rule after your 100th post you fall apart?

How does one come back from a dream over a year in the making, financially and emotionally expensive, crashing down around them? I guess I’m figuring that out right now.

Breaking and trying to rebuild only to be so fragile the whole structure just breaks again, and you get even more discouraged and start having a tantrum.

I’ll grasp at any other dream right now to try and calm the pain. That’s how I work. I move forward while suffering, and the forward movement becomes my saving grace somehow, even when I can’t see it or feel it yet.

A dear friend of mine was recently talking about presence. So not surprisingly it has come up for me this morning. My wife and I had an argument yesterday. A fight really and honestly in two years we haven’t had much of one. We got into that space where neither of us could hear the other over our own feelings, and both felt justified, but all the while missing each other and wanting to find our way back. But every time we would try to come back, it would flare again. My wife is much softer on the outside than I am. When any kind of intense or overwhelming situation occurs for me I can go to a very cold and dark place, and I’m not accessible or pleasant when I’m in there. I am seeing that I will not escape talking about trauma as my legacy. I’ve tried for a long time. After all I’d like to be one of the “normal” people, that does not become filled with terror at the slightest hint of someone’s upset with me. It feels wriggly to admit that 🙁 even in this sage space with those who love me. They are deep inside feelings.

Anyway more in trauma later I promise. For now a quick summary of the argument includes the couch story. Have I ever told you guys this story? Well Courtney (my wife) came with this god forsaken piece of her history. Her and her ex partner had purchased a very very expensive designer, custom made couch. It is fabric and had plush down cushions and should only be washed by the hands of the Gods. Basset furniture professionals.

Anyway we saw a therapist for a few sessions to transition and blend her into our family. One thing I remember distinctly this woman saying was do not bring that couch into your home with kids and dogs. We kind of knew she was right. However the problem is she had just used a giant chunk of her savings to pay the thing off and we couldn’t have gotten 1/4 of the cost of it. What a loss! We decided we would rather have this nice piece of furniture while agreeing we understood the risks. Never in the history of the world has a therapist been more correct.

My Frenchie Sigmund Freud has a bad habit of peeing on anything fabric if he isn’t taking out just about every hour of the day. We have tried everything about this. Sprays, trainings, quarantine. Another problem is he is such a love bug that if he’s not on you at all times he will cry. He’s extremely high maintenance.

So he has christened the couch no less than several too many times, and trying to fix the problem is a whole production. To the point I am nervous that damn couch will become my children’s trauma. As any good mother knows washable pleather is the only reasonable choice for one’s sanity in the realm of children. This is why we can’t have nice things is a phrase often tossed around in our home.

Teens will be teens, and I think if they wandered around anxiously terrified something will become dirty I would be so much more concerned than them being careless. Is this bad ?! I see what pressure does. I see what people who can’t relax end up like, body wise and heart wise. Given the choice more mess, less stress would always be my credo. But the average person who has never lived with children, never mind navigating the complications of cohabitation in general, likes to have order and cleanliness. And don’t get me wrong I like those too. But for me it came down to that or my sanity. Sanity won out and I had to battle what everyone would think, the possibility of feeling like bad mom, etc.

So this is what happens. My wife and I try to go away to get some time to revive an us, to not get lost in the shuffle and our current grief pit. But whenever we do all hell breaks loose at home. The kids are too old to need a babysitter for one night, when the neighbor across the street is there and vigilant, and too young to be expected to have the weight of the world on their shoulders while trying to do well in school, and have their own things going on.

So we got to Vivint’s annual conference in MA, and whilst there get a barrage of texts about the state of affairs at home. The bulldog has claimed the couch his with his signature marking, a gift to us I’m guessing he thinks. And the kids are scrambling in terror to blame whoever is responsible, and we are a state away and now our presence is taken from the conference and stress ensues. The kids are stressed, we are stressed, and that boils over into a few trauma triggers for me. This will be continued as I said because I think it’s really important to speak openly about.

After a few hours of anxious albeit blessed rest I have to clean up the mess I caused the day before any a fury. Threatening to get rid of our dogs, almost sleeping on the couch, and this is a land I haven’t lived in for oh so long. And clearly not helping the kids figure out how to be better while also letting them know they are always loved and safe. I withdraw because I don’t know I’m loved and safe so often. My mind goes elsewhere seemingly no matter how hard I try. It swims to me being a burden, and I cause a partner stress, and all of this chaos.

Anyway this morning. Argument resolved with my wife, though both drained and sad by the interaction, and me trying not to blame myself for being so intense about such things…. and now will come clean up with the kids. So much shrapnel can be left from only a minor interaction such as this. 🙁

So my takeaway was this: I ended up looking at the bulldog this morning and thinking how much I love him and could never give him up, and then stop and picture my kids and how proud and grateful I am, and my life. I am present fully awake, not frenzied by this or that fear or thought, and I feel love and compassion for all of us on this crazy adventure that is my creation. When you create a big life and have big dreams, it’s also a big responsibility, and mine is never to resent it, and always to cherish it, and to continue to learn to stay in my heart.

I want to stay in my heart. I want to be nurturing and not just furiously driven. I beg for the strength to calm my wounds and do this.

I want my wife to know this couch is something we are grateful for. We have had amazing memories on it. The teenagers hang with their friends, we snuggle on it. It isn’t perfect but it means so much to us to be loved, and for her to take a risk on coming so much out of her comfort zones. Does she know she has saved several lives, and is our personal hero? I hope so!

So this was what I wrote this am regarding this:

You know the kids and the dogs are the same concept. Pause and look at them and slow down to take care of them and appreciate what they bring to life (that isn’t just stress) and you’ll smile and feel happy thoughts. Rush through things in a frenzy, don’t stop and look, be running on a healthy dose of stress, and want them to just function independently

and well without any nurturing, and you’re in for a nightmare !